András Schiff

When András Schiff plays Bach, every phrase reveals a passionate love for the music that always adds up to exemplary performances. As New York magazine puts it, “András Schiff would make Bach proud.” Here, Schiff turns his attention to the two-part inventions, as well as music by Bartók, Beethoven, and György Kurtág, plus a world premiere by Jörg Widmann, commissioned by Carnegie Hall.

BACH Prelude and Fugue in C Major from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, BWV 846

BRAHMS Intermezzo in B-flat Minor, Op. 117, No.2

SCHUBERT Hungarian Melody in B Minor, D. 817

Bios

András Schiff

András Schiff was born in Budapest and started taking piano lessons at the age of five
with Elisabeth Vadász. He continued musical studies at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music
with professors Pál Kadosa, György Kurtág, and Ferenc Rados, and in London with George
Malcolm. Recitals and special cycles (including the major keyboard works of Bach, Haydn,
Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, and Bartók) form an important part of his
activities. Between 2004 and 2009, he performed complete cycles of the Beethoven's 32 piano
sonatas in 20 cities throughout the United States and Europe, a project recorded live in
the Tonhalle Zürich and released in eight volumes for ECM New Series.

This season, Mr. Schiff was named a Perspectives artist by Carnegie Hall,
where he performs in a series of concerts that focus on Bartók and the legacy the composer
left on their native Hungary. Unique to this series are the many colleagues who join Mr.
Schiff during the 12 concerts included in his Perspectives-most of whom he has
known since childhood. Additional North American performances take place in Philadelphia,
Princeton, Vancouver, Toronto, Berkeley, Boulder, Napa, and Washington, DC.

In 1999, Mr. Schiff created his own chamber orchestra, Cappella Andrea Barca, which
consists of international soloists, chamber musicians, and close friends. He also works
every year with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.
From 1989 until 1998, he was artistic director of Musiktage Mondsee, a chamber music
festival near Salzburg, and in 1995, he founded the Ittinger Pfingstkonzerte with Heinz
Holliger in Kartause Ittingen, Switzerland. In 1998, Mr. Schiff started a similar series,
entitled Homage to Palladio at the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza. From 2004 to 2007, he was
artist-in-residence of the Kunstfest Weimar, and in 2007-2008 was pianist-in-residence of
the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Mr. Schiff has established a prolific discography, including recordings for London/Decca
(1981-1994), Teldec (1994-1997), and since 1997, ECM New Series. He has received several
international recording awards, including two Grammys.

Mr. Schiff has been awarded numerous prizes, including Zwickau's Robert Schumann Prize,
Italy's Premio della critica musicale Franco Abbiati, the Klavier-Festival Ruhr Prize, the
Wigmore Medal, and the Royal Academy of Music Bach Prize; in 2006, he was named an Honorary
Member of the Beethoven House in Bonn. Also in 2006, Mr. Schiff and the music publisher G.
Henle Verlag began collaborating on Mozart and Bach editions. To date, both volumes of
Bach's Well-Tempered Klavier were edited in the Henle original text with
fingerings by Mr. Schiff.

Mr. Schiff has been made an honorary professor by the conservatories in Budapest, Detmold,
and Munich, and a special supernumerary fellow of Balliol College in Oxford. He is married
to violinist Yuuko Shiokawa.

Audio

J.S. Bach Invention No.1 in C, BWV772a

András Schiff, Piano

Decca

At a Glance

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Inventions, BWV 772-786

Bach's two-part inventions and three-part sinfonias, written for the instruction of his pupils and children, are essential parts of every aspiring keyboard player's repertoire. Over the centuries, their combination of technical challenges and contrapuntal artistry has inspired composers like Beethoven, Bartók, and Kurtág to write teaching pieces of their own.

BÉLA BARTÓK Ten Pieces from Gyermekeknek (For Children), Book II; Three Burlesques, Op. 8c; Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm from Mikrokosmos, Book VI; Out of Doors Suite

Music education was an abiding interest for Bartók, second only to his passion for collecting Eastern European folk music. The six volumes of Mikrokosmos, his major pedagogical work, present exercises of progressive difficulty designed to give students a basic grounding in keyboard technique. Both Bach and folk influences contributed to the modernist style of Gyermekeknek,Three Burlesques, and the Out of Doors Suite.

JÖRG WIDMANN Zirkustänze (Circus Dances)

German composer and clarinetist Jörg Widmann has written in a wide variety of genres, from operas and symphonic pieces to string quartets and instrumental solos. The Schumannesque piano suite Zirkustänze(Circus Dances), commissioned by Carnegie Hall for tonight's performance by András Schiff, reflects his creative engagement with music and musical forms of the past.

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Six Bagatelles, Op. 126

A bagatelle is traditionally considered a trifle, but the term can hardly describe these wonderfully sophisticated and challenging pieces that Beethoven wrote soon after finishing the Ninth Symphony and Missa solemnis. Conceived as a set, the bagatelles combine the uncomplicated lyricism of Beethoven's early works with the intricately convoluted style of his late period.

Now in his mid-80s, György Kurtág is widely regarded as Hungary's greatest living composer. In addition to Játékok, his open-ended collection of playfully imaginative pedagogical pieces for one and two pianos, he has written numerous musical homages and memorials, of which these four short pieces are recent examples.

Watch

András Schiff reveals that the music of Bach has always been present in his musical life and the central role that the multi-instrumental keyboardist George Malcolm played in his appreciation of J. S. and C. P. E. Bach.